The whole interface of Inkscape is showing using Unicode symbols instead of a readable font. I have installed Inkscape 1.4 (Intel version using installer Inkscape-1.4.028868_x86_64.dmg) on an iMac Intel Core i7 running Monterey.

Any suggestions on resolving this?

Maybe this: 

• We've tried to fix the tofu (user interface text showing up as little rectangles instead of letters) that under some rare conditions showed up on macOS when the user interface font could not be found (MR #5625, Bug #3532). However, while this fixed it for some, it made the user interface look ugly for the majority of users, so we did not use the fix for this release.
  In the case that this bug affects you, you can work around it, though. In the ui folder (see Edit » Preferences » System), create a file called user.css, and add the following contents to it:

  /* Fix for rare macOS systems that don't load the right system font */
  {
  		font-family: ".AppleSystemUIFont", system-ui;
  }

  
  Now save the file and restart Inkscape.

https://media.inkscape.org/media/doc/release_notes/1.3.1/Inkscape_1.3.1.html

Thank you so much for the quick response. I've managed to open the Preferences as the menus at the top are readable, but the dialog box for the Preferences is in Unicode so I can't find the System secion to locate the ui folder. Can I locate this folder from Finder to add the user.css file?

After some lucky clicks I found the folder in the Library folder of my Mac. I've added the user.css file and restarted the machine but it doesn't seem to have had an effect on the UI font.

Did you make the edits to the css file described above?

There was no existing file called user.css so I created a new text file with that name and copied and pasted your code into it, saved and restarted the Mac. The folder is in Library>Application Support>org.inkscape.Inkscape>config>inkscape>ui>user.css ..does that sound correct?

I got the impression that the code needs to be added to an existing user.css.

Maybe @moini or @polygon can chime in. In the meantime, you can try registering an account for the chat and ask the devs there. https://chat.inkscape.org/channel/inkscape_user

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried in a different user account where it worked as it should, so clearly a problem with how I have my account UI font handling set up. Not sure how to resolve though.

I tried v 1.1.2 which is in english at least, but a very compressed font.